Simun Blog

SIMUN this year was a defiantly a learning experience. At first, it was rather intimidating going into it being only a freshmen and being with all upper classmen who had previous SIMUN experience. I was intimidated by how much they knew and how prepared they were. Therefore, I was afraid to speak because I was nervous what kind of questions they might ask me, and if I would be able to correctly answer them on the spot. I feel I did well for being just a freshman. Every day, I put myself on the speakers list at least one time. Since my country India wasn’t as involved in the scenarios like China was for example, I tried to ask a lot of questions to each of the speakers so I could get more speaking time in. By the end of the second day, I felt like I had really began to understand the Parliamentary Procedure and all of the “inquires,” “making a motion,” and “point of privilege.” I also was proud when I helped formulate a resolution, and it ended up passing.

In order to prepare, I did a lot o research. To start off, I learned about India’s background and different important events that happened in roughly the last 100 years. I read different time lines and then we had a series of written questions that had to do with the scenarios. For each of the questions, we had to do some research. During the research, we learned that you won’t find one specific site that will have all of the information you need. It takes time and patience to learn. All of this prior research to SIMUN helped me prepare myself for the scenarios. If it wasn’t for the research questions, I would have been clueless as to what the scenarios were talking about. Another crucial part of my preparation was the research on who India’s allies were. This better prepared me for caucus time during SIMUN because I knew who I should first talk with.

Next year, I could better prep myself for SIMUN by doing a little bit more research and keeping up on current events that happen in my assigned country. That way, I will have more confidence when speaking and know that whatever the question is by another country, I will be able to answer it. Next year, I will assure myself that I know the Parliamentary Procedure better to help with my speaking. There’s room for improvement next year and am sure I will be able to do better.